I told you in the last post that a large number of matters were passed without comment in the Consent Agenda. Frankly, I suspect no one had the stomach for any more discussion, about anything.
During public comment before the main agenda, Linda Dillon spoke to say she was still not satisfied with what I gather was a reworked version of Noah Jacobs' obsession with a resolution against guns. This item was part of the Consent Agenda. It appears Noah himself shoots from the hip, and one of the people who caught a bullet was Linda. But Noah is in rapid fire mode, and he doesn't seem much concerned with Linda and her passions.
Let me be crystal clear about my own sentiments in this area. I am anti-gun. Virulently so. I have had a number of debates with Linda, who is a gun and shooting enthusiast (to say the least), about this. I wish no civilians had guns.
Noah's proposal, in the name of the Village (a formal Commission/Village "Resolution," not just the statement of Noah's own opinion), was that gun sales and marketing should be "more responsible." Noah's original proposal was more forceful and encouraged more active inhibition of gun availability. I gather he softened his proposal under pressure from Linda. Noah seems now to have reduced his resolution to the most meaningless statement possible. Gun sales and marketing, as is true of pretty much everything there is, should be "more responsible." You can't really argue with that. You can't do much of anything with it.
Here's the problem: Linda, a BP resident who is far more stable and devoted in the neighborhood than Noah is, doesn't approve of Noah's resolution. Many BP residents, I'm sorry to say, own and keep guns. There are no sales, and there is no marketing, of guns, or anything else, in BP. So Noah is proposing something that offends many BP residents, and has no local meaning or applicability. To the extent that the Resolution's sentiment pleases some BP residents, like me, it doesn't go anywhere. It merely gratuitously affronts other BP residents for no gain. No one is meaningfully gratified (even including virulent anti-gun people, like me), and others are simply annoyed.
So Noah got himself a silencer, and he had his little pet passed without comment on the Consent Agenda. This was expedient. It was not nice, it was not respectful, it was not graceful, and ultimately, it was empty and useless. But I have a feeling it will find its way onto Noah's resume, which may be the only thing this was about anyway.
This is just another example of a lack of fiscal responsibility from Mayor Noah. What does any of this have to do with Biscayne Park?
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much time and expense was tied to his pet project issue? Couple that with him holding up this week’s meeting while I am sure we were “on the clock” with the Village attorney shows a clear lack of how to run an efficient meeting. That plus yet another meeting that ran well past 11:30pm.
And some wonder where our reserves have gone…
Fiscal, or any other kind. Nothing.
DeleteYes, you may be quite sure Eve Boutsis was sitting there, chattering away, and running the clock.
Hold that thought about where the money has gone. Chuck and I are working on that blog post right now. Should be out within the week.
Fred
Don’t see the point of mentioning just Noah as they all followed his lead. If you want to post the following, feel free…..
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting. When I got up to speak, I was so annoyed that I also forgot a couple of other important points. Of course I’d probably have exceeded the time limit allowed, so maybe just as well. Much of the resolution was copied word for word from another municipality. They certainly weren’t original thoughts! It was also that original document from where the totally biased statistics were handpicked. And of course no one bothered to verify these statistics in the first place. As I said, statistics from the CDC and the National Safety Council, neither of which have a bias in this argument, show a different picture. As I said at the meeting, my sources show that one is more likely to be injured while jogging, playing tennis or golf than by a firearm and that I thought a resolution against texting while driving would have been more valuable, or something to that effect. In their resolution they also stated, “Licensed gun dealers are the biggest source of illegal firearms”. They left out a very important word at the start of the quote…. The word “Corrupt”! I love the taking from context to twist the message. I am just very glad they did heed my concerns a little so that there was no attempt to turn this whole thing into an ordinance. Had they done so…. Well, no need to discuss what might have been.
Linda Dillon
Linda,
DeleteIf you're right that some other Commissioners follow Noah's lead, then the reason to single him out is that he is so influential as to drive the decisions of others. If he's that much of a leader, then he deserves responsibility, or blame, for the decisions his followers make under his influence. Having said that, I would point out to you that what happened was that the whole Consent Agenda was simply passed together, in my opinion because no one could bear any more discussion. The fact is, the meeting had already been extended twice, and there was time pressure to end it. There would not have been an opportunity to discuss this item or any other item separately, unless someone wanted to take it off Consent, and bring it up next time. As far as I know, it is the prerogative of individual Commissioners to propose to assign items to the Consent Agenda, so if that's true, it was Noah's tactic to keep it off the radar. Whether you take that as a personal affront is up to you. It certainly didn't escape your notice or prevent your commenting about it.
Fred
My error. I'm told by Sira Ramos, once a resident here and our Code Compliance Officer, that some years back we had a BP resident who sold firearms from his home, on the internet. I'm not sure our new Resolution would have impacted him, since I have no reason to think he was not "responsible" in his business. He was even good enough to take out an occupational permit for his home business.
ReplyDeleteFred